Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Delta Pavonis

Star typeg G8

Distance from Earthg 19.92 ly

Star Service No.g NA

Ageg Probably older than Sol and in the range of 5-7 Gy; the star is unusually bright for its spectral type, and so may be becoming a subgiant star that is beginning to evolve off the main sequence, as it begins to fuse the increasing amounts of helium "ash" mixed with hydrogen at its core

Diameter/Mass/Temp (xSol)g 106%; 110%; 5700 K

Brightness (xSol)g 118%g Luminosity has increased 60% since it became a zero-age main sequence star

Star system featuresg Nearest sun-like star that is not a binary or trinary

Known planetsg None

Habitable zoneg An Earth-type planet would be "comfortable" with liquid water is centered around 1.09 AU; at that distance from the star, such a planet would have an orbital period of about 395 days. Probability of a habitable planet is 5.7%. Porto de Mello lists it as one of 13 nearby astrobiologically interesting stars.

Sci-fi mentionsgDune (1965), novel by Frank Herbert. The planet Caladan is the third world of the Delta Pavonis system.gRevelation Space (2000), novel by Alastair Reynolds. The planet Resurgam and the neutron star Hades are part of the Delta Pavonis system.g The novelette "Sundowner Sheila" by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre (published in Interzone 202, February 2006) takes place on Terra Nova, a planet orbiting Delta Pavonis in synchronous rotation with almost no libration, so that one hemisphere of the planet is in perpetual darkness, and the other hemisphere (known as Nevernight) is in perpetual daylight. "Sundowner Sheila" is narrated by a synthetic human who is assigned to a longitude on Terra Nova where Delta Pavonis is permanently at zenith, so that the sun is always directly overhead and the time of day is always noon.g Transformers (1983) animated television series, “The Big Broadcast of 2006” episode. Delta Pavonis IV is the home of a race of humanoid cats. A malfunctioning hypnotic Quintesson signal drives the cats to attack a neighboring planet of humanoid dogs.g "The Right Hand of Dextra" by David J. Lake. Home of the Dextrans, a semimobile plant intelligence.g Known as "Benzar", home of the Benzites, in "Star Trek" universe. The Benzites appeared in "Star Trek: The Next Generation."g A human colony was established on the planet Loki in this star system, in Robert Silverberg's novel "The Man in the Maze."g Alien species gathat lives on planet orbiting main star in Chris Berman's novel “Ace of Aces.”

About Me

I'm the owner and chief editor at Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the editing and proofreading needs of writers both new and published. For more than two decades, I worked as an award-winning journalist, with half of those years spent as an editor. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres have been published, and I am the author of the nonfiction “Hikes with Tykes” series, a novel "Windmill", and a collection of poetry, "Love Letters to Sophie's Mom". For seven years I worked as an English teacher or a community college journalism instructor. I hold a master's degree in English and a bachelor's in journalism and English.